Ring Lardner
| birth_place = Niles, Michigan | death_date = September | death_place = East Hampton, New York, U.S. | occupation = writer, journalist}} Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (March 6, 1885 - September 25, 1933) was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical takes on the sports world, marriage, and the theatre. Life Born in Niles, Michigan, Lardner was the son of wealthy parents Lena (Phillips) and Henry Lardner. He was the youngest of 9 children. Lardner's name came from a cousin of the same name. The cousin, in turn, had been named by Lardner's uncle, Rear Admiral James L. Lardner, who had decided to name his son after a friend, Rear Admiral Cadwalader Ringgold, who was from a distinguished military family. Lardner never liked his given name and shortened it to "Ring,' also naming a son of his own Ring Jr. Career In 1913, Lardner provided lyrics for "That Old Quartet" for composer Nathaniel D. Mann. In 1916, Lardner published his 1st successful book, You Know Me Al, which had initially been published as 6 separate but interrelated short stories in The Saturday Evening Post (leading some to classify the book as a collection of stories; others, as a novel). Lardner went on to write such well-known stories as "Haircut", "Some Like Them Cold", "The Golden Honeymoon", "Alibi Ike", and "A Day with Conrad Green". He also continued to write follow-up stories to You Know Me Al, with the hero of that book, the headstrong but gullible Jack Keefe, experiencing various ups and downs in his major league career and in his personal life. Private Keefe's World War I letters home to his friend Al were collected in Treat 'Em Rough. Lardner also had a lifelong fascination with the theatre, although his only success was June Moon, a comedy co-written with Broadway veteran George S. Kaufman. Lardner did write a series of brief nonsense plays which poked fun at the conventions of the theatre using zany, offbeat humor and outrageous, impossible stage directions, such as "The curtain is lowered for seven days to denote the lapse of a week." Lardner was a close friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald and other writers of the Jazz Age. He was published by Maxwell Perkins, who also served as Fitzgerald's editor. To create his 1st book of short stories Lardner had to get copies from the magazines he'd sold them to — he held his own short stories in light regard and did not save copies. Lardner was also a well-known sports columnist, who began his career as a teenager with the South Bend Tribune. Soon after, he took a position with the rival South Bend Times, the first of many professional switches. In 1907, Lardner moved to Chicago, where he joined the Inter-Ocean, considered the worst newspaper in the city. Within the space of a year, he moved up to the Chicago Examiner, then to the Tribune.The Lardner Dynasty - Ring 2 years later, Lardner was in St. Louis, writing the humorous baseball column "Pullman Pastimes" for Taylor Spink and the Sporting News; some of this work was the genesis for You Know Me Al. Within three months, he was an employee of the Boston American. Lardner returned to the Chicago Tribune in 1913, which became the home paper for his syndicated "In the Wake of the News" column (started by Hugh Keough, who died in 1912); it appeared in more than 100 newspapers, and still runs in the Tribune. Sarah Bembrey has written about a singular event in Lardner's sportswriting experience: "In 1919 something happened that changed his way of reporting about sports and changed his love for baseball. This was the Black Sox scandal when the Chicago White Sox sold out the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Ring was exceptionally close to the White Sox and felt he was betrayed by the team. After the scandal, Ring always wrote about sports as if there were some kink to the outcome." Walter Allen stated "It is like Lardner perfectly feeds a specific American trait into every character of every story he ever wrote." Lardner's last baseball writing was Lose with a Smile in 1933. Lardner influenced Ernest Hemingway, who sometimes wrote articles for his high school newspaper under the pseudonym Ring Lardner, Jr.Friends at www.tridget.com The two met in December, 1928 thanks to Max Perkins but did not become friends. "The Only Thing That Counts: The Ernest Hemingway - Maxwell Perkins Correspondence," Matthew J. Bruccoli, Scribner, 1996. He died September 25, 1933, at age 48 in East Hampton, New York, of complications from tuberculosis. Family Lardner was married to Ellis Abbott of Goshen, Indiana in 1911. They had 4 sons, John, James, Ring Jr., and David. John was a newspaperman, sports columnist and magazine writer. James, also a newspaperman, was killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting with the International Brigades. Ring Lardner, Jr. was a screenwriter who was blacklisted after the Second World War as one of the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters who were incarcerated for contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions posed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He won 2 Academy Awards for his screenplays — one before his imprisonment and blacklisting (for Woman of the Year in 1942), and one after (for M*A*S*H in 1970). "Ring Lardner Jr., blacklisted Oscar winner, dies at age 85" Katherine Roth, Chicago Sun-Times 02-11-2000 The Literature Network '' http://www.online-literature.com/article/ring-lardner/19084/ His book, ''The Lardners, My Family Remembered (ISBN 0-06-012517-9), is a reliable source of Lardner information. David worked for the ''New Yorker'' as a general reporter and war correspondent before he was killed by a landmine near Aachen, Germany in October 1944, less than a month after his arrival to the European Theater of war. Lardner was a grand uncle to 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner George Lardner, Jr., a journalist at The Washington Post since 1963."General Information: History of The Post: "For Feature Writing, by George Lardner Jr. for his unflinching examination of his daughter's murder by a violent man who had slipped through the criminal justice system" http://www.washpost.com/gen_info/history/prizes.shtml Writing You Know Me All (1916) was an epistolary novel written in the form of letters by "Jack Keefe", a bush-league baseball player, to a friend back home. The letters made heavy use of the fictional author's idiosyncratic vernacular. Like most of Lardner's stories, You Know Me Al employed satire, in this case to show the stupidity and avarice of a certain type of athlete. "Ring Lardner thought of himself as primarily a sports columnist whose stuff wasn't destined to last, and he held to that absurd belief even after his first masterpiece, You Know Me Al, was published in 1916 and earned the awed appreciation of Virginia Woolf, among other very serious, unfunny people," wrote Andrew Ferguson, who ranked it, in a Wall Street Journal article, among of the top 5 pieces of American humor writing.http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/fivebest/?id=110009333, Andrew Ferguson, "Five Best: Some humor doesn't age well, but these American classics remain funny beyond compare, says writer Andrew Ferguson", Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2006, P8, accessed (on a free part of the newspaper's Web site) December 3, 2006 With the exception of You Know Me Al (which was initially written and published as 6 separate stories), Lardner never wrote a novel; but he is considered by many to be 1 of America's best writers of the short story. Recognition In popular culture Lardner was in some respects the model for the tragic character Abe North in F. Scott Fitzgerald's last completed novel, Tender Is the Night. In the 1988 movie about the Black Sox, Eight Men Out, writer-director John Sayles (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Lardner) portrayed Lardner as one of the clear-eyed observers who were not taken in by the conspiracy. In a scene, Sayles strolls through the White Sox train, singing a parody of the song "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles", changed to "I'm Forever Blowing Ballgames".Eight Men Out Movie Review, DVD Release - Filmcritic.com Publications Poetry *''Bib Ballads. New York & Chicago: P.F. Volland, 1915. Play *''June Moon: A comedy in a prologue and three acts (with George S. Kaufman). New York: Scribner, 1930. Short fiction *''You Know Me Al: A busher's letters. New York: Doran, 1916. *Gullible's Travels, etc.'' Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs, Merrill, 1917; London: Chatto & Windus, 1925. *''Treat 'Em Rough: Letters from Jack the Kaiser killer.'' Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs, Merrill, 1918. *''The Real Dope''. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1919. *''Own Your Own Home'' (illustrated by Fontaine Fox). Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1919. *''The Young Immigrunts. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1920. *The Big Town: how I and the Mrs. go to New York to see life and get Katie a husband. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1921; New York & London: Scribner, 1925. *''What of It? New York: Scribner, 1925. *''Say It with Oil: A few remarks about wives'' (published with Say It with Bricks by Nina Wilcox Putnam). New York: Doran, 1923. *''The Love Nest, and other stories''. New York: Scribner, 1926; London: Phillip Allan, 1928. *''Round Up: The stories of Ring Lardner''. New York: Scribner, 1929; Franklin Center, PA: Franklin Library, 1977. *''Lose with a Smile''. New York: Scribner, 1933. *''First and Last'' (edited by Gilbert Seldes). New York: Scribner, 1934. *''Ring Lardner's Best Stories''. Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing, 1938. *''The Collected Short Stories of Ring Lardner''. New York: Modern Library, 1929. *''The Best Short Stories of Ring Lardner''. New York: Scribner, 1956; London: Chatto & Windus, 1959. *''Some Champions: Sketches and fiction'' (edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli & Richard Layman). New York: Scribner, 1976. *''Ring around the Bases: The complete baseball stories of Ring Lardner'' (edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli). New York; Scribner / New York & Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan, 1992. *''The Annotated Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner, 1914-1919'' (edited by George W. Hilton). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. *''Lardner on Baseball'' (edited by Jeff Silverman). Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2002. *''Lardner on War'' (edited by Jeff Silverman). Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2003. Non-fiction *''My Four Weeks in France. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1918. *Symptoms of Being 35. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1920. *''How to Write Short Stories (with samples). New York: Scribner, 1924. *''The Story of a Wonder Man: Being the autobiography of Ring Lardner''. New York: Scribner, 1927. Collected editions *''The Portable Ring Lardner'' (edited by Gilbert Seldes). New York: Viking, 1946. *''Shut Up, He Explained: A Ring Lardner selection'' (edited by Babette Rosmond). New York: Scribner, 1962. *''The Ring Lardner Reader'' (edited by Maxwell David Geismar). New York: Scribner, 1963. *''The Best of Ring Lardner'' (edited by David Dodge). London: Dent, 1984. *''Stories, and other writings'' (edited by Ian Frazier). New York: Library of America, 2013. Letters *''Letters from Ring'' (edited by Clifford M. Caruthers). Flint, MI: Walden Press, 1979. *''Ring around Max: The corresondence of Ring Lardner and Max Perkins'' (edited by Clifford M. Caruthers). DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1973. *''Letters'' (edited by Clifford M. Caruthers). Washington, DC: Orchises, 1995. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy LarnermaniaLardner's Writing, Lardnermania. Web, Nov. 1, 2014 & WorldCat.Search results = au:Ring Lardner, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Nov. 1, 2014. See also * List of U.S. poets References Fonds * Ring Lardner Papers at the Newberry Library Notes External links ;Poems *2 poems by Lardner: "Welcome to Spring," "The New Plaything" *Ring Lardner at Poetry Nook (5 poems) ;Prose *"Haircut" at Classic Short Stories ;Books * *Works by Ring Lardner at Internet Archive *Ring Lardner at Amazon.com ;About *Niles native Ring Lardner, baseball's poet laureate at MLive.com *Ring Lardner at Perspectives in American Literature *Lardnermania - An Appreciation of Ring W. Lardner and his Work website *Baseball Hall of Fame - Spink Award recipient *Ring Lardner and baseball *A Literary Friendship: Ring Lardner and F. Scott Fitzgerald Category:1885 births Category:1933 deaths Category:20th-century novelists Category:American humorists Category:American novelists Category:American satirists Category:American short story writers Category:American sportswriters Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:Infectious disease deaths in New York Category:People from East Hampton (town), New York Category:People from Niles, Michigan Category:Writers from Chicago, Illinois Category:Writers from Michigan Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets